Western legs

Joseph Susanka charts the history of the Western, the reasons for its 'death' and then its partial rebirth. It is sometimes suggested that the times are less hospitable to the genre than they used to be, because the battle between a clear right and a clear wrong was so central to it, and contemporary sensibilities are much attuned now to moral complexity and moral ambiguity. When all is said and done, who are the good guys? That's not really persuasive. For one thing, there's no reason why standard Western themes and locations can't provide the setting for moral complexity or ambiguity. For another, the world hasn't changed so much that there aren't still right and wrong, and people on each side of that divide (with all the qualifications you might feel you need). So, long live the Western indeed - and other forms of representation of the same battle.